Urdu/Adjectives

There are two kinds of Adjectives in Urdu

• Those who end end in consonant or any vowel excluding a
• Those who singular form for masculine ends in a

The first (those ending in consonants but excluding "a") does not inflect where as the second one inflects with respect to gender and the number of the qualifying noun.

This inflection for the second case is shown below (Tiwari, [1966] 2004).

	Masculine				Feminine
	/ نیلا / nīlā — blue				/ نیلی / nīlī — blue
	Declined word		Case suffix		Declined word		Case suffix
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Direct	نیلا / nīlā	نیلے / nīle	-	e	نیلی / nīlī	/ نیلی / nīlī	-	-
Oblique	/ نیلے / nīle	/ نیلے / nīle	e	e	/ نیلی / nīlī	/ نیلی / nīlī	-	-
Vocative	/ نیلے / nīle	/نیلے / nīle	e	e	/ نیلی / nīlī	/ نیلی / nīlī	-	-

Note:

1. If the noun to be qualified consists of multiple words of different numbers and genders, then the adjective must agree with that particular noun which it immediately precedes or follows.
2. Some long ā ending adjectives do not undergo any inflection with respect to gender or number at all. These exceptions include adjectives ending in yā (e.g., / گھٹِیا / gʱaṭiyā — poor, دُودھِیا / dūdʱiyā — milky), vā (e.g., سوا / savā — quarter, بھگوا / bʱagavā — saffron), Sanskrit tatsams (e.g. مہا / mahā — great), Persian-Arabic words that originally ended in ah but as Hindī loanwords end in long ā (e.g. سالانا / sālānā — annual, تازہ / tāzā — fresh, مُردا / murdā — dead, مردانا / mardānā — manly etc.), and certain other adjectives (e.g. چؤکنّا / caukannā — alert, تنہا / tanhā — lonely etc.).

There is no definite article (the) in Urdu, although increased Arabization has brought in ال(ul) as a near substitute, an example being ul-burj (the building). The numeral ایک / ek (one) may be used for the singular indefinite article if it needs to be stressed.

There are many ways of making positive–comparative–superlative forms of adjectives:

1. By using comparing phrases such as

• سے / se,
• کے مُقابلے / ke muqābale
• زیادہ / zyādā + adj.

1. For Superlative

• سب سے / sab se
• سب سے زیادہ / sab se zyādā
• سب سے کم / sab se kam

1. Persian’s inflectional way, by suffixing - تر- / -tar for comparative and - ترین- / -tarīn for superlative.